Following the “Indian Trail”: Isabel’s Lost Mohawk Lineage in Melville’s Pierre

Isabel, the enigmatic heroine of Melville’s Pierre , confounds readers: the contours of her racial identity remain unknown. This essay proposes that the story she tells of her infancy coheres with the historical context of the Mohawk Valley. Examining her words verbatim, this essay proposes three specifics regarding her narrative. First, it is plausible that Isabel has Mohawk roots. Her first house may have been Old Fort Schuyler, and her second house a sailing vessel that crossed Lake Ontario to join the Six Nations Indian Reserve. Second, the interracial “intimacies” around Mohawk chief Joseph Brant may provide the background for Isabel’s lost maternal lineage. Third, Pierre’s cruise route through New York Harbor parallels his father’s incitement to “wedge” and follow the “Indian trail,” so Pierre could discover Isabel’s maternal lineage. In Pierre , Melville surreptitiously implied that Isabel was the ancestral enemy of not only Pierre’s family but his own.